1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to patient transfer, and more specifically to apparatus and methods for loading into, unloading from, and otherwise moving a patent within, an ambulance.
2. Background Information
The work duties of an emergency medical services (EMS) crew typically comprise two primary tasks: patient medical care and patient transfer. Patient transfer typically includes a number of steps. When an EMS crew arrives at a scene (e.g., a house, a street, a workplace, etc. where an injured person is located) the EMS crew often first transfers the patent to an ambulance chair to move the patient to the ambulance. Once moved to the ambulance, the EMS crew then loads the patient into the rear of the ambulance. The patient is typically transferred from the ambulance chair to an ambulance stretcher at this point. After driving the patient in the ambulance to a hospital, the EMS crew unloads the patient and ambulance stretcher from the rear of the ambulance, and transfers the patient from the ambulance stretcher to a hospital stretcher, to bring the patient inside of the facility.
While patient medical care has improved dramatically over time, the logistics of patient transfer have progress little in the last fifty years. Typically, most of the lifting and movement of the patient is performed manually by the EMS crew. The heavy lifting needed to move the patient often involves significant twisting and other unnatural movements, sometimes in confined spaces within the rear of the ambulance. This may lead to spine injuries, hernias and/or other traumas for the EMS crew, and pose dangers to patients from accidental drops and mishandling.
More specifically, while in some situations it may be possible to load a patient directly into an ambulance stretcher, often the above described step of first loading a patient into an ambulance chair is necessary. An ambulance chair typically may be maneuvered through tight quarters, and fit within standard elevators. In contrast, use of an ambulance stretcher is often limited to open areas and structures with wide hallways and freight elevators, which can accommodate the size of the ambulance stretcher. After moving the ambulance chair near the ambulance, the EMS crew typically manually lifts the chair and patient together into the rear of the ambulance. With a typical ambulance, the chair and patient may need to be lifted as much as 33 inches above ground level to the level of the interior floor of the rear of the ambulance. The height of such lift causes this movement to be a significant source of injury for the EMS crew, as well as a potential danger to a patient, who may be inadvertently dropped or mishandled.
After the patient and ambulance chair are loaded into the rear of the ambulance, the patient is typically transferred from the ambulance chair to the ambulance stretcher. Typically, this operation is performed manually by a single EMS crew member, who embraces the patient around the chest, lifts the patient from the ambulance chair, and then performs a twisting movement to transfer the patient to the ambulance stretcher located along side the ambulance chair. This movement is typically an even greater source of injury for the EMS crew than the initial lift into the ambulance, as one crew member must lift all the patient's weight, while twisting inside a confined space. In particular, this twisting motion is a common source of spinal injuries for EMS crew members, as well as a common source of patient drop accidents.
Previous attempts to address the problems encountered in patient transfer have suffered shortcomings, which have limited their use and acceptance by EMS crews. For example, various types of hydraulic stretcher lifts have been developed that can vertically raise an ambulance stretcher from ground level to the level of the floor of the rear of the ambulance. However, such hydraulic stretcher lifts do not address the problem of transferring a patient from an ambulance chair to an ambulance stretcher. As discussed above, it is often impractical to initially load a patient into an ambulance stretcher rather than an ambulance chair, and transfer of the patient between the ambulance chair to the ambulance stretcher typically cannot be avoided. This transfer, however, is not aided by a hydraulic stretcher lift, leaving a difficult manual lift to still to be performed by an EMS crew member. Further, the hydraulic mechanisms commonly employed in hydraulic stretcher lifts are generally heavy, bulky and maintenance intensive. If maintenance is neglected, such lifts may be prone to fail mid-rise, creating a potentially unsafe situation, where manual completion of the lift is difficult, or unfeasible, for a two person EMS crew. Still further, such hydraulic stretcher lifts are often quite slow, and the time needed to deploy the lift, use the lift to load a patient, and re-stow the lift, may be unacceptable in a time-sensitive EMS response.
Accordingly, there is a need for improved techniques for loading a patent into, unloading a patent from, and otherwise moving a patent within, an ambulance.